Bids for imported billets into China moved down w-o-w on the back of waning demand and sharply falling rebar futures prices seen towards the beginning of this week. SteelMint’s bi-weekly export assessment for imported billets into China stood at $700-705/t, CFR, on 14 Sep’21.
“Bids can be even below $700/t CFR levels as re-bar futures have corrected quite a bit. The market has been very quiet since the beginning of this week,” informed a trader.
A Qatar-based mill concluded a billet parcel to China towards the end of last week at around $645-650/t on FOB basis (equivalent to $715-720/t CFR China), SteelMint learnt from market sources. Approximately, 150,000 t of billets have been booked by Middle East-based steel mills for exports in the last one week.
Fall in SHFE rebar futures: According to data maintained with SteelMint, the Chinese SHFE rebar futures contract for Jan’22 delivery closed today, 15 Sept’21 at RMB 5,518/t ($858/t), lower by over RMB 120/t ($19/t) against RMB 5,640/t assessed towards last weekend. However, today futures have slightly recovered by RMB 26/t ($4/t).
Meanwhile, domestic billet prices in China have not shown the same reflection as in futures. Steel billet prices in China’s Tangshan rose by around RMB 100/t ($15.5) on a weekly basis and were stable on 15 Sep’21. Prices of domestic billets stood at RMB 5,220/t ($811/t), inclusive of 13% VAT.
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